Let's Ride!

When my son was a little guy we lived in Kansas, in a neighborhood filled with young families with children his age. All the kids got along so well and loved to play outdoors together. Whenever they'd meet up after school or on Saturday mornings the call would go out from one child to the next, "Let's Ride!"

It sounded gruff and exciting to hear this message echoing forth but, I found the cry very cute knowing that it meant, "Let's pedal our bikes up and down the sidewalk until suppertime."

I've always loved bicycling myself. When I was very young it gave me a sense of independence to "head out and go places" (back and forth along Westgate Lane) on my own steam. And, even now as an older person I get satisfaction from completing a lot of little errands with this simple form of solid transportation. I feel productive and, for a brief period,free of the eternal dependence upon fuel sources. "No need to check the gas gauge, to the library and the post office AWAY!" It's a lovely, silent sport, and really, you can get pretty far quite quickly!

I like to pedal all the year round so it was truly a dark day when my old winter bike, Trusty Rusty, bit the dust. And honestly, my primary, fair-weather bicycle is genuinely worthless once the snow flies. (It has too many gears that get clotted with snow, and skinny tires, and an elaborate braking system, and no tread and...)

Enter good-old-Santa-Claxton who surprised me with this little beauty below. It has one speed, a simple foot brake, and fat, fat tires with heavy-duty traction. It is meant to be my snow bike. I found it waiting for me in the garage, an early Christmas gifty. (I removed the little wreath before taking this picture. Ahh.)

Additional great news! We've been under a blizzard warning as of early this morning. (Yay, I guess.) So while the kid in me says, "Let's Ride!" the slower, wiser Treadler in me says, "How about INSTEAD let's set up a little snacking tray, put in a few old movies and dye some wool?"

So far this morning I've completed the above dyed  2oz-rovings (braided to look cute for the picture), watched White Christmas and made a good little dent in the Hickory Farms basket that our Teal sent us.

Now, if only Santa would come on ahead with Claxton's fantastic gifties.

He must have been awfully good this year because a little birdy told me that his stocking will be stuffed with a full 24 episodes of the first season of the Waltons! Believe me this will come as quite a surprise to good ol' Clax as I'm sure he never, ever even imagined wanting the first season of the Walton's, (or any of the subsequent seasons for that matter). And, he'll be even more dumbstruck (seems like the right word) to find the entire original ULTRA Man series awaiting him as well.   What a lucky, lucky lad. Ho, Ho, Ho!

Santa cannot be blamed. No one ever  knows what Clax really wants. Best to surprise him with things he simply doesn't expect and see how they go over. There was a time when I was quite elaborate in my gift-giving. But, that was back in the olden days. Now I know better. We never use the telescopes, or the rock tumblers of Christmas Past. Meanwhile, the scarf that I knitted for his mother turned out to be an accidental and absolute hit with Mr. C! Poor Mary Lou, if you ever discover the internet and stumble across this blog entry I'm sorry to report that your evil, evil son stole the hand-knit scarf I created with you in mind back in Christmas 2008, and he will not give it back! He's wearing it right now. (I have to go.)  Happy Holidays!!